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Increase Your Productivity And Gain An Edge

October 20, 2016

How badly do you want a promotion? How about a big pay raise? Your productivity is a major factor to improving your chances of a promotion. Everyone has their little productivity ‘secrets.’ We asked some of the Jobipedia experts to weigh in and share some of their insights into dramatically increasing your productivity.

Are there any books you would recommend to increase productivity?

Bret from Emerson responded, “One book and methodology that has stuck and I use every day is ‘Getting Things Done’ or GTD by David Allen. His book and practices have been around for a long time… and that’s because they work. It would be easy for you to pick that up and get yourself organized in a day or two.” Full Quote from this Q&A

Charlene, a hiring expert from The Gap, shares her affection for a different book, “‘Eat the Frog’ by Brian Tracy speaks about picking the one thing on your ‘to do’ list that your are least excited about doing, and do that first. He calls that least favorite thing the ‘frog’, and if you do that first every day you will be more productive. I have tried that and it REALLY works. The reason being if you have ever had something that you have procrastinated doing because you don't want to do it, (maybe a paper, or studying for an exam) it weighs heavy on your mind, no matter what you are doing, that is a nagging feeling and nothing gets done as fast with as much enjoyment as it should, simply because you know you have to do something you don't like at some point. Just do it, get it over with and with that comes a great sense of accomplishment, energy and you become more productive instantly!” Full Quote from this Q&A

What apps or software do you utilize to increase your productivity?

An expert from Textron, Beamer, recommends a very underutilized software, “The best thing I ever did for that was take an Outlook class because my company uses that to manage emails and schedules. Whatever you use for email and a calendar, I suggest you dig deep into that and commit yourself fully to it. If you become a master of that, paying attention ways to keep your inbox at zero, create and manage tasks and use your calendar the right way, you will be amazed at what you start to accomplish.” Full Quote from this Q&A

Nell, from Pitney Bowes, offers a very short and exuberant recommendation for one piece of software, “My personal 2016 productivity favorite is OneNote! It is awesome and allows me to also house documents in it as well.” Full Quote from this Q&A

Bret from Emerson also gave us a great recommendation for a productivity app to use in conjunction with his book recommendation, “With established Getting Things Done habits I use two other powerful tools. The first is Asana (www.asana.com). It is an online social tool designed to help teams track their work and projects. I have used it in the past for ad hoc projects and have since adopted it for my daily task list and keeping me on point.” Full Quote from this Q&A

Your productivity, or lack thereof, defines your personal brand. If you’re known as a person who gets things done, you’ll be seen as a valuable asset to your team. The reality is if you don’t have a system for your productivity you will find it difficult to gain traction and get things done efficiently. Once you do have a system established, however, it will be necessary to utilize some software or app to allow you to keep track of your strategy.

How quickly could you see that next promotion if your productivity increased by 50-100% from what it is now? The only person holding you back from higher efficiency and an increased paycheck is you.